Indians trail; three share the lead
Luiten, Nakajima, Manassero in the van with cards of seven-under 65; Aman, Om Prakash, Kochhar shoot 68 to bring some cheer in home camp
Like so often in the past, the projected ‘favourites’ posted ordinary firstround scores in the opening round of the $2.25 million Hero Indian Open but that allowed some lesser known names to catch the attention by grabbing noticeable spots on the leaderboard here on Thursday.
Joost Luiten (France), Keita Nakajima ( Japan) and Matteo Manassero (Italy) shared the lead with cards of sevenunder 65. No Indian was among the top10 but Aman Raj, Om Prakash Chouhan and Karandeep Kochhar shot 68 to bring some cheer in the home camp.
The picturesque DLF Golf and Country Club held no terrors. The wind was not up and that made life a lot better for those on the course.
That led to 62 subpar and 17 par cards from 144 starters. However, Shubhankar Sharma (70) and Anirban Lahiri (77) had contrasting rounds.
Luiten, ranked 129th, had an eventful round. Starting with a par, he birdied the second hole and dropped a shot on the next two. But thereafter, the Frenchman did not put a foot wrong. He nailed four more birdies on either side of the turn to finish well.
Nakajima, 23, was on fire on the front nine and took the turn with a flawless 30, dotted with six birdies. Ranked 111, the Japanese moved to sevenunder after the 11th but dropped a shot on the 14th. Such was his confidence that he immediately picked up a stroke to return to 7 and parred the last three holes.
The 187thranked Manassero, who started from the 10th hole, could have emerged as the sole leader had his birdieputt on the ninth hole — from about 20 feet — not lipped out. The Italian came up with a bogeyfree card after taking the turn at twounder. On his backnine, he birdied the first, fifth and seventh holes before a chipin ‘eagle’ on the eighth put him alongside the leaders 7.
Of the three Indians tied at the 14th spot with a 68, Kochhar shot three birdies and a bogey on both sides of the turn.
Leading scores: 65: Joost Luiten (Fra), Keita Nakajima (Jpn), Matteo Manasserro (Ita); Sam Bairstow (Eng), Jordan Smith (Eng) and Romain Langasque (Ned).
Indians (with sub-par scores): 68: Aman Raj, Om Prakash Chouhan, Karandeep Kochhar;
Veer Ahlawat;
Shubhankar Sharma, Gaganjeet Bhullar; Rashid Khan, Rahil Gangjee and Khalin Joshi, and Sunhit Bishnoi.